4. IT DOESN’T TAKE INTO
ACCOUNT PERSONAL HIS-
TORY.
So what do I mean by person-
al history? Well, how were you
brought up? On fast food? With
healthy meals? Eating fruits and
vegetables? Encouraged to try
new foods? You see, our personal
history has a big influence on our
food choices.
For me, I was brought up on a
lot of fast foods and not many
vegetables. I loved Doritos, Beef
Stroganoff, and Ritz Bitz but
hated vegetables. With my pro-
clivity towards fast food and my
lack of experimentation eating
vegetables and different fruits,
how could I be expected to intu-
itively choose to eat things that
were higher in nutrition content?
How could I be expected to
know how eating more fruits and
vegetables would make my body
feel?
Given complete freedom to
choose what foods I wanted to
eat, I would have just continued
eating what I was used to…. not
exactly a food plan that would
set me up for health success
long-term.
Science supports this idea as
well. Humans love their habits
and we tend to stick to habitu-
al ways of eating. So while the
intuitive eating plan may work
well for someone who is used to
eating fruits and vegetables as
part of their everyday food plan,
it doesn’t necessarily work for
someone who hasn’t been as ex-
posed to nutritious options.
In that instance, I needed to set
intuitive eating aside and say
to myself “even though I really
want the French fries, I am going
to try these grilled vegetables
because I haven’t eaten any veg-
gies today.” My taste buds were
used to a certain type of eating
and I craved those foods at the
beginning. Instead of intuitively
wanting to eat a salad or drink
a smoothie, I wanted what I was
used to…fast, processed, foods.
I am not saying that eating these
foods makes you good or bad…
au contraire…I’m just saying that
some people (like me) need to use
logic instead of intuition for some
meals. At least until their taste
buds change. Which brings me
to point #5.
5. IT DOESN’T TAKE INTO
ACCOUNT THE ADDICTIVE
NATURE OF FOODS.
Now this is probably the most
controversial reason on this list.
There are many in the nutrition
field who argue that foods aren’t
addicting. Well, I firmly believe
that this is not the case. I believe
that processed foods have ingre-
dients that affect our brains in
ways that make them hard to get
away from and highly crave-able.
More and more research is
showing that processed foods
and chemicals like aspartame
and high fructose corn syrup
elicit reactions in our brains
that are associated with similar
reward pathways to addictive
drugs. 10,11,12 Even without all of
the new research, common sense
wins in this argument. Have you
ever heard of anyone binging on
broccoli or carrots? What about
blueberries or apples? If you just
look around you, you can see
that people are able to eat a big
bag of potato chips or a sleeve of
cookies a lot easier than they are
able to eat a huge batch of vege-
tables or fruits.
If processed foods had no effect
on the brain, and fruits and vege-
tables were on equal ground with
Oreos and Doritos, then don’t
you think that people would
choose the most nutrient dense
option every time? The intui-
tive eating philosophy explains
the choices of processed foods
over whole foods by saying that
people eat more processed foods
because they feel that they are
“restricted or bad” foods. While
I agree that restriction can play
a role, I feel that a restrictive
mindset alone is not a complete
explanation for the proclivity
towards these chemical laden
options. The high amounts of
refined flour, sugar, salt, etc. in
the processed foods lining the
aisles hook people on a biochem-
ical level by triggering the reward
centers in the brain. This leads
to a desire for another hit of
happy chemicals…which leads to
another hit…and another…until
you have a habit of eating some-
thing that provides very little
nutritional value for the body.
The main theory for the intuitive
eating philosophy stands on the
premise that if you eat a certain
food enough, it will lose its allure
and you will tire of it and stop
eating it. I don’t argue that the
phenomenon of disinterest hap-
pens, but what the theory misses
is that the frequent consumption
of these foods alters the chemi-
cals in our brain to crave them
more. Personally, I know that I
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